18 July 1942: (25 March 1942???) In the late 1930s, Germany began developing a fighter powered by a turbojet engine. In early 1942 the first two prototypes of the Messerschmitt Me 262 began flight testing. They had two BMW 003 jet engines mounted on the wings, but for safety, a piston engine and propeller were mounted in the nose.

At 8:40 a.m. on 18 July 1942, V3, the third prototype, call sign PC+UC, made the first pure-jet flight when it took off from Leipheim, Bavaria, with Messerschmitt’s Chief Test Pilot, Flugkapitän Fritz Wendel.

This prototype was powered by two Junkers Jumo 004 turbojet engines. The Jumo 004 had an eight-stage axial flow compressor, six straight through combustion chambers and a single-stage turbine. It produced 1,850 pounds of thrust (8.23 kilonewtons).

Messerschmitt Me 262 V3, PC+UC, takes off on its first flight at Leipheim, 18 July 1942.

There were problems created by the airplane’s use of a tailwheel configuration. Turbulence from the wings and reflected jet exhaust blanked out the tail surface. When the Me 262 prototype reached flying speed, Wendel tapped the brakes. The tail popped up, free of the turbulence, and the jet fighter took off. Beginning with the fifth prototype, V5, all Me 262s were built with tricycle landing gear.

Messerschmitt Me 262 V3, PC+UC

1,430 Me 262s were produced. They entered service during the summer of 1944. Luftwaffe pilots claimed 542 Allied airplanes shot down with the Me 262.

26 April 1939: Test pilot Fritz Wendel flew a prototype Messerschmitt Me 209 V1, registered D-INJR, over a three-kilometer course at Augsburg, Germany, setting a new Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) world record with an average speed of 755.14 kilometers per hour (469.22 miles per hour). ¹ Wendel’s record broke one set just three weeks earlier by Hans Dieterle in a prototype Heinkel He 100 fighter. ² The new record would stand for the next 30 years.

Willy Messerschmitt congratulates test pilot Fritz Wendel. (NASM)

The Me 209 V1 (also known as the Me 109 R) was specially built as a speed record airplane. It used a very short fuselage with the cockpit well aft of the wing. A small ventral fin gave the airplane’s tail surfaces a cruciform configuration. To reduce aerodynamic drag, a conventional radiator was not used. Instead, surface coolers of the type used in Schneider Cup racers were placed on the wings.

The Me 209 was powered by a Daimler-Benz DB 601ARJ, a highly-modified version of the DB 601A. The production engine was a liquid-cooled, direct-injected and supercharged 33.929 liter (2,075.497-cubic-inches), inverted single-“underhead”-camshaft 60° V-12 engine with four valves per cylinder and a compression ratio of 6.9:1. The supercharger was driven hydraulically. The engine was rated at 970 horsepower at 2,300 r.p.m. at 12,000 feet (3,658 meters), and 1,050 horsepower at 2,400 r.p.m. for takeoff (limited by a clockwork mechanism to 1 minute), using 87-octane gasoline. The propeller reduction gear ratio was 14:9. The DB 601A was 67.5 inches (1.715 meters) long, 40.5 inches (1.029 meters) high and 29.1 inches (0.739 meters) wide. It weighed 1,610 pounds (730.3 kilograms).

Various sources give the power output of the DB 601ARJ as 1,800 horsepower at 3,000 r.p.m., and 2,300 horsepower with methyl alcohol injection, for very short periods.

Fuselage of the Me 209 V1 at Muzeum Lotwnictwa Polskiego w Krakowie.

The fuselage of the Me 209 V1 is in the collection of the Muzeum Lotwnictwa Polskiego w Krakowie (Polish Aviation Museum at Krakow, Poland).